Australian biotechnology firm Claydata® offered audiences a sneak peek at their new PuttyHealth™ software last week at a conference representing The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Australia's largest medical practitioner body.

The conference, GP11, attracted hundreds of medical professionals from around Australia and the world, all eager to hear from a wide range of speakers under the banner of the conference theme "Explore. Collaborate. Innovate". A hot topic doing the rounds in Australian medicine currently is the Australian government's new e-health strategy, with a focus on "Patient Controlled Electronic Health Records" (PCEHR), due to be rolled out next year. With some figures in a disconcerted industry concerned about what they see as a hastily established breach in medical integrity, Claydata® have sensed opportunity, wading in to provide what Claydata® founder Dr Grace describes as a "revolutionary solution".

In the light of the current debate and mounting governmental pressure to implement effective e-health technologies, Claydata®'s software is considered a 'world-first' in terms of the unique way it dovetails with the reality of medical practice. The increasingly vocal demands of industry and government for adequate e-health systems were certainly reflected amongst the general practice community represented at GP11. With all ears, and some scepticism, turned towards Claydata®'s seminar, the small team of product designers proceeded to astound those gathered with a display of software innovation and, importantly for those floundering in the fragmented world of e-health delivery, platform integration.

Though the basis for the Claydata® seminar was a scientific research paper presenting a unique e-health informatics system in the context of a medico-scientific conference, the Claydata® seminar was all about getting hands-on and workshopping. After a brief update on the state-of-the-play in terms of the key issues of e-health, electronic medical records (EMR), and PCEHR, Claydata® presented its flagship PuttyHealth™ software to a curious crowd that constituted a cross-section of the medical community. Representatives of the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA), naturally concerned with developments in this area, found themselves rubbing shoulders with directors of the Royal College, seasoned EMR users, and doctors with little or no knowledge of e-health systems.

With the Claydata® philosophy embedded in the creative use of truly intuitive software – an experience that can be 'molded' and 'scultpted' – users were encouraged by Claydata® founder Dr Grace to "look, feel, see, and touch" the demonstration medical records they created via the PuttyHealth™ software. After experimenting with the system across user-end platforms as diverse as laptops, iPads, iPhones and even regular, 'non-smart' phones, users were astonished to find themselves generating, modifying, communicating medical information and delivering telemedicine consultations in a secure space, in real-time, and with no prior knowledge of the system. Courtesy of an entirely backwards-compatible, 'universal' suite of software platforms and applications, they found themselves practising what Claydata® had preached in their introduction, that is to plug the gap between the antiquated products offered by established EMR vendors and the demands of a contemporary, tech-savvy medical industry weaned on ease-of-use and instant information.

"It's safe, it's secure, and it offers something that is sorely lacking in existing EMR solutions. We're giving the medical community - doctors and patients – modularity, flexibility and integration, all-important portability, and the opportunity to really own their valuable medical data. We're hearing from people with no experience with e-health systems that it's fantastic and really slick, while from experts who are keen to get at the nuts and bolts of PuttyHealth™, get customising the software, we're hearing that it exceeds their expectations," said Grace.

After finding out that this product was widely used in the United States, practitioners were keen to take this 'practice run' on the road and into their clinical practice. The question on everyone's lips was 'where can I get this product in Australia?' In response, Grace has promised an announcement about a domestic launch in the next few weeks.